The present application relates generally to automobile electrical systems, and more particularly to battery charge management in vehicles.
When a customer takes delivery of a new automobile, she has the reasonable expectation that the vehicle's battery is fully charged. Most particularly, a new user expects that the battery has not been fully discharged before the vehicle leaves the manufacturing facility. The normal vehicle manufacturing process, however, can produce exactly that result.
During manufacturing, a vehicle is switched from plant-supplied power to the vehicle's battery system after the battery is installed. Vehicle quality checks include repeatedly operating various electrical loads, opening and closing the doors, and turning the vehicle “on” via the ignition switch. Those activities drain the vehicle's newly installed battery. Often, vehicle ignition switches and doors are left open, further burdening the battery system. All of these conditions cause the vehicle to draw current from the battery. Thus the period between battery installation and delivery presents a very real risk that the battery could arrive at the customer completely discharged. Similar problems are encountered during long periods of vehicle storage or inactivity, such as storing a vehicle over the winter season.
At present, various controls exist in a vehicle's electrical architecture to limit battery drain during the normal operation For example, a feature referred to as “battery saver” is available that turns off a vehicle's lighting if the light is left on accidentally, a glove box is left open, or a door is left ajar. A simple timer solution is employed to extinguish the loads after a timeout. These solutions, while helpful during the manufacturing process, are not designed to aggressively manage and preserve the battery state of charge during the manufacturing process, but are rather designed for normal operation.
A need exists to implement systems and processes in vehicle architecture to monitor and minimize the amount of charge drawn from the vehicle battery between manufacture to delivery or during other low-operation periods.